Across Australia, a quarter of all households with children under 15 had at least one child who had seen a GP for urgent medical care in the 12 months prior to the survey (25% or 579,900 households). Around 21% of these households had two or more children who had done so.

Proportions of households with children who had seen a GP for urgent medical care did not differ significantly across States and Territories, nor were they greatly affected by degrees of relative disadvantage or remoteness.

Nationally, 77% of households reported that their children had seen a GP within 4 hours of making an appointment for urgent medical care, 14% reported that their children had seen a GP after 4 hours but on the same day, and 9% reported that their children had been unable to see a GP for urgent medical care until the day after making an appointment or later.

Waiting times for children seeing a GP for urgent medical care were longer for households in outer regional/remote areas, with 65% of households reporting that their children were seen within 4 hours, compared with 77% of households in inner regional areas and 79% of households in major cities (see Figure 7.5).

7.5 Time between making appointment for child and child seeing GP for urgent medical care (a), by Remoteness(See Table 7.1 for more detail)